Technology brings market forces to health care

Gone are the care-free days when people could afford not to pay attention to health care prices because insurance would cover the cost one way or another.

Today's insurance comes with deductibles and co-pays that give people an incentive to keep costs down — something that's becoming easier to do thanks to new technology that allows for health care price shopping.

Take, for example, the Search & Save Center, one of the online tools on display Friday morning at a health care technology forum sponsored by Capital BlueCross. Through the center, accessible from the insurer's website, customers can browse the prices at local hospitals and doctor's offices for more than 1,600 common procedures.

So a person who needs, say, a knee replacement, can quickly find out where to go to get such work done for the least amount of money.

Essentially, such technology is introducing market forces that have long been lacking in the health care industry, said Daniel Burrus, a San Diego-based entrepreneur, author and "futurist" who was the keynote speaker at the forum. As result, both patients and insurers will be able to save money.

"The disparities (in health care prices) are giant," he said.

According to a study published by BlueCross BlueShield in January, the average cost for a total knee replacement was $31,124 in 64 markets across the country. However, the procedure could cost as little as $11,000 in Montgomery, Ala., and as high as $70,000 in New York.

"All of the sudden, prices become transparent, and then prices will level out," Burrus said. "Before, there wasn't competition when it came to pricing."

Capital BlueCross is also rolling out an app so customers can access the health care price data from their mobile phones and other mobile devices.

So far, about 200,000 people, or about one-fifth of Capital BlueCross's customers, have visited the Search & Save Center, said Tammy Little, a senior product consultant for the insurer. A smaller proportion — between 1 and 5 percent — have used the site specifically to compare health care prices.

"It's slowly increasing," she said.

Also on display at the forum, attended by about 150 people at the Holiday Inn in Fogelsville, were a variety of other Internet-connected medical technologies. One was the BioPatch, a wireless electronic monitor that tracks the wearer's vital signs and can help predict major health problems, such as heart attacks, before they happen.

Burrus said the health care industry is moving from a break/fix model — "you are broken; we will fix you" — to a predict/prevent model "to make sure the bad thing doesn't happen."

Capital BlueCross spokesman Joe Butera elaborated: "We're going to get you in a good place with your health over all, and these tools will help you with that, as well as to keep your costs down."